Forgiving My Brother’s Killer

This year, as he has done every year since September 15, 2002, Rana Sodhi hosted a memorial for his brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi who was shot while planting flowers in front of his store just four days after the 9/11 attacks. His murder turned a generation of young people, like family friend Valarie Kaur into activists, who began helping communities organize against racism and violence. But after this year’s memorial, Kaur and Rana realized that despite the passage of 15 years of activism, their communities were still trapped in a cycle of violence and hate. So, they decided to do something radical — use revolutionary love as an antidote to hate — they decided to call Frank Roque, the man who killed Balbir, and who is serving a prison life sentence. This article with an embedded audio clip, shares the powerful story of that telephone conversation.